Nic Cage Scolds Emma Stone In The Croods Trailer

For better or worse, the family road trip is an institution that is as old as time. So it's fitting that The Croods, the latest animated adventure from DreamWorks, goes back to the land before time to tell the tale of a family of Neanderthals forced to leave the comfort of their cramped but safe cave behind and set forth to places unknown.

Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) and Kirk De Micco (Space Chimps) wrote and directed the prehistoric comedy, which boasts a voice cast that includes Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, and Cloris Leachman. We got a peek at The Croods' clan encountering the brave new world that lies ahead of them in the film's first poster, and now we can see this cave-dwelling family in action in the feature's first trailer. Check it out below, or in hi-res at Apple:

I have to admit, I was initially unimpressed by this premise, but from the looks of this promo, DreamWorks has an imaginative new take on the father-daughter narrative here. Cage's overprotective papa Grug just wants his family to be safe. To him that means keeping them confined to the cave, and so he tells stories that equate curiosity to death. But this falls on deaf ears when it comes to Stone's angst-driven teen Eep, who—like many animated heroines before here—dreams of exploring the world outside her window, and so sneaks out on a journey that will impact not only her, but her whole family.